An annotated bibliography submitted for my Media Theory class
Labiste, M., & Chua, Y. (2020). Duterte’s Polemic Against the Catholic Church as Hate Speech. Plaridel Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 1–33. www.plarideljournal.org/article/dutertes-polemic-against-the-catholic-church-as-hate-speech/
Labiste and Chua examine Duterte’s populist politics by putting into context what constitutes hate speech using a local lens. They explore his political playbook for a reconstruction of a more consistent narrative indicating his ideology and agenda, which impose themselves as more political than moral and theological. Using content-related analysis and rhetorical analysis, they dissect Duterte’s purposively selected speeches with claims or statements against the church during his first year in office. As presidential speeches are considered public acts, the performative nature of Duterte’s incoherent and vulgar tirades against the church supports the conditioning of the masses where his caustic rants charge themselves into the public sphere as seemingly valid and justifiable points, especially to those who prefer to be non-critical. This study also discusses how Duterte’s acts can instill fear to silence his critics. It looks into patterns and formulas to systematically examine any form of hate speech in the statements of the highest leader of a profoundly religious nation and how this widens the schism between the church and the state.
Lanuza, G. (2020). The Theological Squabble of Duterte Against the Catholic Church: Discourse Analysis of Duterte’s God-Talk Based on the Verses Found on Online News. Plaridel Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 35-73. www.plarideljournal.org/article/the-theological-squabble-of-duterte-against-the-catholic-church-discourse-analysis-of-dutertes-god-talk-based-on-the-verses-found-on-online-news/
Lanuza probes into President Rodrigo Duterte’s diatribes against the church and his de-mythologizing of Catholic doctrines and teachings based on Michel Foucault’s (1980) analysis of “regime of truth.” To suit his own politics, Duterte thrusts himself into a duel with priests and bishops by radically re-interpreting traditional meanings of Christian symbols and doctrines and branding himself as a sinner with his own religion, while the clergy as sinners living a double standard of morality. The power play in the Duterte word war against religion counters the dominant ideology of a largely Catholic nation. This study helps articulate some of the crucial facets of the grand narrative of this populist authoritarian’s strategic attempt for fanatics, including the religious ones, to stand by his side as they relate to his own weaknesses and imperfections more than these people’s walled relationship with the clergy. With his unconventional means of politicking as documented in online news reports, he mythologizes himself as an entertaining sinner-savior his “cult followers” deserve in the middle of the clergy’s backlash that he insinuates as ridiculous and oppressing – undermining the power of the church in the process.
San Pascual, M. (2020). “The Climate of Incivility in Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Social Media Environment.” Plaridel Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 171–201. www.plarideljournal.org/article/the-climate-of-incivility-in-philippine-daily-inquirers-social-media-environment-2/
The rapid epochal shift brought about by the Information Age, which greatly impacts the society’s economic and cultural environments, highlights the relevance of this study about the incidence of online incivility in interactive online media. In this research, San Pascual provides a glimpse on the forms and timeline of incivility in the case of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) website’s commenting platform and its official Facebook page using Zizi Papacharissi’s (2004) conceptualization of incivility in the context of its democracy-compromising consequence, particularly that of the democratic potential of political discourse. The research team conducted a seven-day constructive week sampling of daily news reporting covering a total of seven top trending news articles of PDI from September to October 2017. Analyzing the forms, locations, and targets of incivility, as well as computing the incivility density and plotting a timeline of occurrence of the most popular forms of incivility, this study substantiates the impacts of identity and anonymity in further addressing incivility in the online platforms where they persist.
